


Real-Time Trauma

by ToastyDehmer



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, Hurt No Comfort, Pain, Post-Borderlands 3 (Video Game), Sirens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22279210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToastyDehmer/pseuds/ToastyDehmer
Summary: When a Siren dies, their powers must find a new host.
Relationships: Rhys & Zer0 & Lorelei (Borderlands)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	Real-Time Trauma

**Author's Note:**

> I love wingfics. This AU and oneshot was made in the span of 24 hours. I regret nothing.
> 
> Enjoy!

In the Hyperion workspace on Helios, Rhys had always been ridiculed for his traitorous colors. His red and white and black feathers so reminiscent of Atlas loyalty. Words like ‘Cuckoo’ and ‘Cowbird’ were common companions but more so was the derogatory name everyone else called him behind his back.

‘Molothrus’.

Intruder. A fake. It’s what company plants were called. They weren’t given mercy even by those inside the company they belonged to. To be a Molothrus was to be an outcast. It was why Rhys aspired to reach the top - just like Handsome Jack. He’d get there and prove to everyone just how much he belonged. After all, Handsome Jack didn’t even have the company colors on his wings to back him up as CEO but he brought Hyperion from the brink of company death after slamming Dahl back to their territory.

Rhys wanted to be like Jack.

Fate must have thought it cruel irony to bring Rhys where he currently stood. Atlas colors still laid on his back but instead of sitting in a Hyperion throne, he now called Atlas his. Rhys ground Helios and Hyperion beneath his heel only to bring Atlas back to life like a phoenix, burning brightly and vibrantly for all to see.

“So Maliwan only has a few remnants left here, right?”

“That would be correct,” Zer0 spoke from Rhys’ far left.

Lorelei pointed at a part of the map of Promethea that they had flattened out over Rhys’ desk.

“Our forces on the ground tell me this is their last major stronghold,” she added with a grin, tapping the spot a couple times before planting her hand back on the desk. “After that it’ll be like taking candy from an overgrown baby.”

“Maliwan is weak. / All their soldiers are adult / overgrown babies.”

Rhys snorted, pushed off the desk, and stood up, arms folded in front of him. He looked down at the marked map with pride. Soon Promethea would be free of Maliwan and rebuilding efforts could officially start. Atlas could really help people, bring out supplies like food and water, help them find new homes, fix everything that Maliwan ruined under Katagawa’s leadership. And as much as he wished it would be easy, Rhys wasn’t a fool. Fixing Promethea was going to be just as much of an effort as it was rebuilding Atlas. Likely moreso.

Zer0 and Lorelei traded ideas on how to deal with the stronghold to Rhys’ left. He smiled and turned to the large window behind them all, his weight propped up on his desk with his wings wrapped tightly around himself. The smile dropped into a worrisome frown.

Sure, Rhys could be hopeful as much as he wanted but everything depended on the Vault Hunters.

If they didn’t defeat Tyreen, all was lost. From what Zer0 told him, if she was allowed to gain the power of the Vault of the Destroyer and live...the universe would be doomed. And Rhys believed Zer0. His friend had never lied to him or led him wrong yet.

Last update they had was the Vault Hunters had deployed down to Pandora for the final showdown. Rhys couldn’t help but wonder if the Crimson Lance would have the courtesy to let everyone know Tyreen was finally dead.

His wings flicked and fluffed before quickly settling, the smaller black-tipped feathers in the wingpit taking longer to lay flat again. A lull fell in the conversation behind Rhys before naturally picking back up after a moment while Rhys fiddled with and preened the stubborn feathers.

Lorelei and Zer0 knew Rhys and they knew his norms. And to be frank, this _was_ their norm, talking battle plans, joking about each other’s kill count, trying to make light of their situation. At least until all this was over and then it was going to change for the better.

Or...it was supposed to.

When Rhys looked up after straightening his feathers, he expected to see Atlas HQ immediately outside his window and then from there the glowing, technological brilliance of the Meridian Metroplex. What he didn’t expect was a fast-approaching, blindingly bright, white orb coming towards them from the atmosphere. It was barely bigger than the tip of a sewing needle in the distance and at first, Rhys thought his turrets would take care of it. But as it came closer and his turrets didn’t move, worry gnawed at him.

Any unauthorized entity was supposed to be targeted as soon as it came within a two mile radius of Atlas HQ. That included up into the sky - which was enough to reach into space. That orb was close enough for Rhys to spot _without_ the use of his ECHOeye.

_So why weren’t his turrets doing anything._

It was hurtling closer by the second and no one had noticed. There was no alert over his intercom or eye asking about the unidentified _thing._ Rhys pushed off the desk, feathers fluffing up in size and shaking. Again the conversation beside him stopped but this time it didn’t resume after a moment.

“Rhys?” Lorelei asked. “You alright there?”

Rhys looked over to her for a single second and said, “You don’t see that!?”

Lorelei followed the line of his pointer finger and stared out at the horizon with evident confusion.

“Don’t see a city that’s not being blown to bits 24/7 for once?” She said it slowly like she thought Rhys might be losing it and with nothing in her voice but confusion, confusion, confusion. And for some reason, that made every alarm bell in his head start to violently clamor.

Rhys quickly turned to Zer0.

“Please tell me you at least see it!”

Zer0 turned, looked, and replied, “I see nothing wrong.”

No. Rhys wasn’t losing it. He couldn’t.

He dealt with Handsome Jack as an AI and survived.

He dragged Helios out of the sky and survived.

He built Atlas back up from the ground and _survived._

No way was a company war going to be what finally broke him.

Rhys turned his back to the window, closed his eyes, massaged his temples, and muttered to himself, “I’m okay! I’m okay. I’ll turn around and it will be gone. It...doesn’t exist. Maybe I’ve had...too...much….caffeine! Yeah! That’s gotta be it.”

His wings flicked and twitched and were kept tight against his back. Stray feathers were out of place, messy and pointed other ways. It was like a niggling itch at the back of his mind to fix them.

“I’ll drink a bunch of water and it’ll be gucci! Perfectly fine! But first, I gotta turn around because I must have seen something else and just...mistook it! Yeah! Mistook it. That’s all.”

He opened his eyes and slowly turned back around.

“That’s…. Shit!”

He scrambled backwards and around the desk with his wings flapping wildly, wide eyes on the head-sized orb that was _coming right for him what the fuck_ **_was it!?_ ** Not even two seconds and it was passing through the window like there was nothing there before it forcefully slammed into Rhys' chest. Literally. He flew back a few good feet, launched from his feet and into the air without hesitation before gravity swept him back down.

“Rhys!” Two sets of voices called in alarm. It was the last thing Rhys could take in before pain swarmed him. At first he thought he landed on his wing wrong, broke a bone or two but he’s done that before. Multiple times. This felt nothing like that. _Nothing._

This was the sort of pain that made his ears ring and his skin crawl with ants. The kind where every single minuscule muscle was screaming at him in pure agony. Pain that made his vision tunnel with white around the edges. Hearing hurt. Touching hurt. Smelling hurt. Hell, just fucking _looking_ hurt. And nothing helped. His body writhed on the floor, his wings flapping and smacking anything that came near him and dear _god his wings._

Everything he felt? For whatever reason, his wings were tenfold. The only reason Rhys was clutching his head for dear god was because he could fit his hands around it. Holding onto both wings? Ha! Funny.

Rhys screamed his lungs out and even then he didn’t stop, rolling onto his knees and elbows and letting his wings stretch out fully because he hoped and hoped and hoped that he was wrong, that the pain was from a really bad break or ten because he was scared to know the alternative.

A glowing caught his attention and he glanced over, tears pouring down his cheeks to find his left arm alight. It was shining and his tattoo was no longer there. It was gone and in it’s place were swirls upon swirls. Ones he only vaguely recognized and was stupefied to find on his own arm for the exact .05 seconds he was able to keep the pain from washing the thought away because someone touched his shoulder and his entire being just _shrieked._

Every single piece of him was ripping apart at the touch.

He was being torn to bits from the inside out.

“Rhys!” he heard someone yell in his ear over his own screams. And he looked to his side and immediately wished he hadn’t because over Lorelei’s shoulder, Rhys saw something he’d never be able to forget.

His wings….were disintegrating. Slowly turning to dust before his very eyes.

For one moment, everything stopped. His screams stopped, his tears stopped, his pain- it all just….froze. And then it came crashing down all at once.

Rhys yelled out incoherently and lunged for the tip of a feather that was more than half gone. He wrapped the one hand around it and like ash it broke apart. Part of it swirled around growing smaller and smaller until it was gone. A purple glow ate at his wings, slowly eating from the tips up and he couldn’t stop it.

He didn’t want to lose his wings! He didn’t want to be a fucking Siren! If Rhys lost his wings-

Leaders didn’t lead without wings. Leaders didn’t even have clipped wings. Without his wings, he would be the lowest of them. He’d be a Flightless everyone’s worst nightmare and he couldn’t he couldn’t he needed them _why were they disappearing no come back_ **_come back come back-_ **

And then the pain hit again and he fell on top of his cybernetic arm, paralyzed by the agony coursing through him. He wasn’t through it all yet. Not by a longshot.

Lorelei’s and Zer0’s heads came into view and Rhys stared back silently begging for relief even as he failed to read their lips. Lorelei, she came closer and dropped to her knees at Rhys’ side and he prayed to a god he didn’t believe in that she wouldn’t touch please don’t he couldn’t handle it again it was too much and-

And she was reaching for him. Rhys- he just-

“STOP!”

He just meant to push her away.

His left hand moved faster than he thought it would but right when it was too late to stop, he realized he shouldn’t have moved.

As his hand came within an inch of her sternum, a bright petal pale pink glow encircled his hand and the new markings covering that arm lit up. What happened next he couldn’t even muster the words to describe later in the safety of his bedroom-turned-personal ICU. He touched her and he felt... _something_ from her. Something that he suddenly found himself starving of. And without thought...he took. He _consumed._ And it….felt….like….blissful relief. It felt nice...being free of that pain. But then the connection was lost and Rhys lost the ability to think.

He threw himself away, writhed and convulsed and found himself back on his knees and elbows and something inside of him gave way. His back arched with an unholy screech, his shirt burned away, his wings gone, and with a room filled with that same petal pink light, two new pairs of wings spanned out from his back, damn near filling the entire room they were so big. Big...and frightening, looking skeletal and demented through the flames.

Rhys sat back, exhausted and barely hanging on. His wings fanned out along the floor behind him, spreading out. The wings slowly gained form, ethereal feathers growing within moments along the skeletal frames, pink with white tips and incorporeal.

A beacon from very, very far away shone bright in Promethea’s skies as if it were only a moon away instead of lightyears.

“Oh,” Rhys breathed. He started to fall but he wasn’t sure which direction.

“Rhys!”

It was pitch black for him by then.

**Author's Note:**

> Rhys got Tyreen's powers OwO But more than that, he gained twofold. It's insinuated in-game that the twins had Siren powers but they had the power of one split between them. Despite that, they were both still pretty damn powerful. But combined? In the words of persephoneggsy "Near infinite cosmic power trapped in the body of a twinky CEO." Hence, two sets of wings.
> 
> And I would think at least _some_ permanent changes after the powers came in direct contact with The Destroyer. Like say...maybe a giant power boost?
> 
> Also, the orb? That's what Lilith's powers are shown as in the scene when she gets 'em back. Just a fast moving orb bee-lining for her body lol.
> 
> This is just a one shot. I had no plans on doing more. It's just this scene came to mind when I was fleshing out the AU so ofc I had to write it.
> 
> Hoped you liked it! What did you think? Is this something any of you would like to see more of in the future should another idea come to mind? Let me know down in the comments!
> 
> See ya next time  
> -Toast


End file.
